... accentuate the
positives of how
technology is
making it easier to
fly than ever before.

You’ll also notice that within weeks of any member giving
in and getting a substantially “bigger and better” airplane,
his or her attendance tends to drop off. If you question the
person about it, he or she will have a list of excuses about how
it’s been too windy, he or she has been too busy, and/or it’s
become more convenient to fly helis and park flyers closer to
home.

The only thing that’s different from when the person used
to come regularly to the club field is that his or her equipment
became appreciably more expensive and complicated to
operate, so the
excitement about
going to the flying
field has been
replaced with the
fear of jeopardizing
a substantial
investment.
We can reassure a
person that the fear
and anxiety does
subside and that he
or she will eventually
enjoy an elevated
sense of satisfaction.
Yet for the majority
of fliers who got into
the sport as a fun
hobby, it is rare to
see someone remain
active in a club when
flying is no longer fun.

Another important
characteristic of a
successful club is
that the leadership

never makes members feel as though they are operating
inferior equipment or tries to push them to purchase
equipment that is out of their comfort zone. If the members
are successful with what they have, the “grass is greener” effect
will eventually kick in and they’ll choose on their own to take
things to the next level—or not. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

The reality is that although technology can be wonderful, it
has also made people’s day-to-day lives busier. Clubs that are
thriving today recognize that many people simply don’t have
the time to methodically learn all of the technical aspects of
the hobby the way that veteran modelers have always sought
to do. Heck, many people today don’t even have a dedicated
place to work on their airplanes!

Rather than trying to return to the old ways, successful clubs
today are open to all types of flying. They support the fact that
the only/best option for many people is to fly mainly ready-to-fly setups that are easy to store and transport.

I know of several clubs that attribute a large part of their
decline to ready-to-fly park flyers and helicopters, which
make it easier for people to fly close to home. The existence
of low-cost, easy-to-fly aircraft has made it much easier
for people to get into the hobby, and more people fly RC
When people reach the limits of what they can do with
their simple park flyers, most will start looking at larger,
more capable airplanes that can handle more wind, and
therefore need to find larger flying fields. It’s the same as
people saying to me that because it’s becoming easier for
people to teach themselves, there will no longer be a need
for an RC flight school. In reality, interest in the school
has tripled in recent years, thanks in part to more people
entering the hobby.

Rather than eliminating the need for clubs, park flyers often
help stem the membership decline and make it easier for more
fliers to get stick time. Although it might appear to veteran
members that park flyers are contributing to declining club
participation, it is more likely that those clubs simply don’t
offer much more than what fliers have access to closer to
home.

5. Although I’m a 3-D pilot, it is easy to see that another
contributor to club members losing interest in flying is the
tendency of 3-D pilots to encourage those around them, no
matter what their abilities, to purchase 3-D airplanes and
equipment. Additionally, much of what people read and see
online is also aimed at enticing pilots to pursue 3-D.

The unspoken reality is that learning to fly 3-D requires
such fast reflexes and endless hours of practice that many fliers
will never achieve 3-D flying skills. Plus, no one mentions that
the tradeoff for setting up a model for 3-D is that it generally
becomes more difficult to fly.

Consequently, with so many pilots basing their equipment
and setup choices on flying 3-D at some point, many end
up struggling or hitting a plateau, especially when the
complicated process of learning to program and trim for 3-D
turns out to be much easier said than done.

When these realities mount, those who don’t become
discouraged
and quit often
fly less and less,
preferring instead
to spend their
time making
changes to their
equipment and
getting involved
in nonflying club
activities.

The following
summarizes some
of the most productive tendencies on display at many of the
country’s vibrant clubs. Just remember, assuming that there is a
willingness to take steps to increase flying activity at your club,
not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good! That is, you
can’t do everything that has proven to work for other clubs,
but giving a few of these strategies a try is certainly better than
doing nothing at all.